A F e w B o l t s L o o s e
by SLOVA
Summary: Ratchet wants to keep to his gruff, old self, but this incessant human female seems to have knack for falling into trouble - and not even with her own kind. Can the CMO keep her away from Bugly and his crew? She's one . . . disinterested girl. What's the worth?
1. 01

**A roleplay between myself and my very good friend, Kari. She's taken control of Ratchet and I of the lady, Piper. In the incoming chapters, more characters will appear and I will give her credit where it is due. A duplicate of this story is in the Trasformers movie tag becauseimadeamistake[cough].**

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In the middle of the night, legality was thrown to the wind. Going to a bar could easily lead to something more dangerous, the severity ranging from a buzzed drive home to a whimsical, hair-brained idea of finding some handguns and stepping into the nearest gas station for a quick register full of bucks.

"Hey, hey! Who the hell was that?!"

"I don't know!"

One of the women in the gas station had slipped away at the back exit while the drunken men waved their firearms at the traumatized cashiers. She wasn't an employee, not with those shorts. She tucked a pack of Marlboro Soft smokes in her jean jacket pocket, quickly making her way down the street to avoid those thugs. This wasn't an uncommon thing in New York, but the police still needed to be notified. She didn't appear scared at all. In fact, she was still generally calm. But, she wasn't stupid, so she sought refuge in a nearby convenience store, open twenty-four hours because of the pharmacy inside. She stepped inside, noting that the cashier was not there. She searched around, finally spotting someone. A gentleman near the pill popper department. He looked like a customer with his casual demeanor and calm, but bright blue eyes.

She tapped him on the shoulder, running a hand through her thick hair. "Hey, got a phone on you?"

He was well-dressed. Nothing too gaudy, but a rolled-up sleeved white dress shirt that tucked into a pair of dark slacks, a belt securing him. He also wore an exhausted expression on his middle-aged face. He only replied with, "Use a payphone." very curtly.

"And me without a quarter," replied the young woman, not looking bothered by his attitude in the least. She was looking at him strangely. On her part, not his. Like there was a cloud of mist in between the two of them. It didn't register that he was being blandly rude to her with his response.

"I can see it . . . at your hip. I've gotta call the cops; will ya help me out, I wonder . . . . "

He quirked a brow at her when she continued to speak. _Oh great_, he thought to himself, another intoxicated person spewing nonsense at him. He wondered if alcohol had some blinding effect. Everyone who he encountered had glazed-over eyes, but this female seemed to be looking straight through him, though he was sure she was talking to him. The police remark caught his attention, though.

"Police?" he repeated, his expression more severe. "Why?"

The young lady admitted, "Some guys at the 7UP down the way. Armed robbery."

"_What_?! Why didn't you tell me that earlier?" the stranger barked back, suddenly marching towards the door. "The police won't make it in time," he muttered. He was either brave or drunk himself. Heading out to take on burglars by himself? Without any weapons? Worst of all he was headed straight for an ambulance parked next to the pharmacy outside.

The young woman didn't follow him out immediately. She rolled her shoulder calmly, reaching outside the door just as he was nearing his truck. She didn't look surprised. "You'll get shot," she called to him, but looking quite the opposite way. "Won't do them any good."

He looked back at her, amused, as if there was some hidden joke that she couldn't comprehend. "Have a little faith," he replied, hopping into the driver's seat. The tires squealed, tossing dirt up in the air before he took off. Since she had walked into the convenience store, he figured that the 7UP was somewhere nearby despite the fact that New Yorkers walked everywhere. Luckily, his guess was right and to keep from being noticed, he parked in an alleyway on the opposite side. If there were any passers-by, they would see a man materialize out of thin air. A magic trick? There were multitudes of street performers in this city.

But he just stood there . . . staring at the brick wall . . . like an idiot to the outside world.

Just a block away, the 7UP's drunken thieves were making a break for it. There was one gunshot before they left, but it was only a shot at a light, which was meant to be for the security camera instead. As soon as they were out the glass doors with the cash register's bearings, the cashiers jumped for the phone. The two burglars were middle-aged men, on the thick side, bearded, one bald, one with a mullet, and smelled viciously of hard booze. They wobbled to a nearby, beat-up old Toyota, staggering with each heavy step.

Though he might have looked brain-damaged staring at the brick wall, the valiant stronger with no phone was actually peering straight through it, assessing the situation. It looked like the drunkards got what they came for. When one of them lifted their gun up, he materialized into the convenience store, just as they took out the light. Relieved, he ran over to the traumatized employees and customers to check on them.

"You alright?" he asked, only getting shaky nods as an answer as the owner contacted 911. The police could handle it, but with drunk idiots on the loose with a car and guns, he needed to intervene before someone /actually/ got shot. Before the victims could say more about his strange entry, he rocketed out the door, disappearing just as an ambulance rounded the corner and high-tailed it after the drunks, alarms blaring. The drunks were driving fast, but clumsily and to prevent any harm coming to people on the streets the ambulance unleashed . . . what looked like a weapon of some sort. The sides of the vehicle began to unfold, mechanical arms with colossal magnets on the ends of them emerging from within. They began to glow with a bright yellow energy, electricity crackling around the edges before a beam shot out and attached itself right to the small car. The ambulance hit its brakes and with the force of that magnet, the car wouldn't go anywhere.

The criminals swore out slurred profanity, stumbling out their Toyota suddenly to avoid whatever the hell their minds were surely conjuring up. What the hell, robot arms? Uh, no, chief! Crap didn't fly like that!

One of them, his pockets full of money, sloppily faltered back and tripped over a closed manhole, landing on his rear-end. The other sidestepped to get a look at the ambulance from the side.

"I'm . . . too drunk for this," he said, sweating profusely now. He swallowed, hearing the bleary sound of a different set of sirens in the oncoming distance. He wiped his mouth with his forearm, noticing a young girl on the other side of the street, a fair way's behind. It was the same girl in the shop from earlier, he thought.

He grimaced, hoisting up his pants and making a break for it unsteadily toward the alley where the young man with the bright eyes had been staring strangely at, or rather through, the walls.

"Oh no you don't," the valiant stranger muttered, the magnets suddenly retracting before a new weapon emerged. This one looked like a futuristic ray gun of some sort. The rings near the front of it turned a bright shade of cerulean blue before a different, jagged beam shot out from the very tip and hit the floor underneath the criminal's feet. The pavement turned to sheer ice, relieving the man of all friction to keep him standing up. In moments, the man had jumped out of the ambulance to grab both of the drunk men to tie them to the nearest light pole.

Dumbfounded, they submitted to defeat, without even really realizing . . . what had even happened with the robbing, let alone this truck turning into a machine of moving parts.

"What . . . the hell was all that?" the pretty lady from earlier, her heavily heavily painted eyes weary, stood a dozen feet away, looking to the truck - not the criminals nor the medic, but the truck.

With their submission, it didn't take long for him to leave them there at the light pole and head back to the ambulance. He gave the girl a nervous glance before approaching her and sticking a finger to her mouth. "You didn't see anything. Am I clear?" The drunks could be written off as raving lunatics, but the police might actually believe this girl if she were to tell them what she saw. The sirens were getting closer and he lifted his gaze to the road beyond the convenience store. With one last look at her, he turned to flee.

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**Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated.**


	2. 02

**Hey, awesome, updates. Love updates. And reviews. Love reviews.**

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When he mushed her lips with his finger, she looked tiredly surprised. She liked that she had seen that display . . . she felt the need to discover more. Maybe this was the sort of thing that Cage said she needed. Something to get her going, pay attention more. Once the freak stranger started to move away, she reached forward and took his hand, looking up at him.

"Either I'll be the liar to the police, or you'll lie to me . . . but both ain't gonna happen, man . . . . "

"What?" He narrowed his eyes at her. "Are you threatening me? After what you saw and you think you can do that?" He sighed. "They wouldn't believe you anyway . . . " Still, he could run into her again. He had a bad habit of doing that with a certain other human in the past. The sirens were getting louder. He could see the flashing blue and red lights reflecting off of the buildings.

"Fine, get in."

He'd make up a story. She wouldn't be able to tell what was true or not anyway.

"You feel weird . . . " said the young woman quietly, letting go of his hand and, without another thought, got into the passenger seat of his truck. She didn't bother to buckle herself up. She put her hands on her bare thighs, looking down at her shorts, then out the window at the approaching lights. She'd been in trouble with the cops a year ago because of a dumb boyfriend. "Dum dee dum . . . . "

He watched her curiously as the ambulance sped away from the crime scene. He didn't seem very inclined to watch where he was going, barely even looking ahead in the direction he was supposed to.

"You're a rather . . . spacey individual, if I'm using the terminology correctly."

It took her a full minute before she turned to look at him. Did he say something yet? She couldn't remember. "I'm sorry, you . . . said something . . . to me?" She was already going out of it. She berated herself quietly, frowning and rubbing her knees with the palms of her hands. She licked her full lips and looked ahead to the road. "What'd you do back there? What's with your truck?"

He rolled his eyes, returning his focus to the road. "Nevermind, you answered my question." He didn't answer her question for a while, thinking of a logical answer that she'd believe. "Y-_We're_ a technologically advancing society. The improvements are just an example of evolution. All of the new ambulance vehicles on the market are equipped with them."

"Don't lie to me . . . "she said idly, leaning back in the seat with her head lying back, looking out at the world like she was about to watch it burn slowly from the distance in, and she was fine with it. "I'm not stupid . . . I might sound like I am 'cause I drift in and out of focus, but . . . I know when I'm bein' lied to, mister . . . . "

"Wh- How would you know?" he shot back with a frown. "You're not a doctor. You don't know what advancements we've made!" Everyone seemed to see right through him these days. Was he _that_ tangible? Maybe it was the jacket.

"Doctors don't have anything to do with this . . . "she said, not moving at all. The only thing that moved was the gentle collision of her lashes when she blinked. "Paramedics get what they get . . . that's what you are. And last I checked, they don't attach weapons and stuff like that to trucks meant to _save_ people . . . . " She closed her eyes. "I'm not dumb . . . I'm good at telling when people lie to me. Not all the time, but I can tell right now."

He had never meant someone so monotonous before.. She was worse than Prowl when he was sitting at his desk going over logistics, statistics, pretty much anything with an '-ic' at the end. "Alright, fine. You caught me. I'm not an actual doctor. I work for the military," he replied. "This is a . . . prototype for . . . combat medics. They get shot at, too, when they're in the field." That was actually true. He would know.

Why would he have lied to her before? Was it something about how _she_ looked, or about how others perceived him? The young lady bit at her lower, full lip, going over the possibilities to herself. "Sorry . . . what did you say?" she asked, looking over to him, looking a bit apologetic. "I . . . didn't hear you . . . . "

He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. "Are you deaf?" he growled. "I said I worked for the military. That's all you need to know." How did this human function?

The girl's cheeks brightened then and she looked out her window, her eyes only visible in the side view mirror on her side. She looked like she had just been beaten up. "Sorry . . . " She put her hands in her lap, gripping and ungripping her fingers lightly. "I . . . I'm Piper . . . by the way, I guess."

Great, now he felt a little guilty. He was tempted to apologize, but shook his head. Nope, he wasn't going to get involved with any other humans. Being sympathetic was just the first step to getting . . . attached. Eugh. "Hmph," he managed to scoff. "Well, if that's all." The ambulance vehicle pulled over to the side of the road. "I told you the truth. Now you can be on your way."

"I want your name . . . " she said gently, through a bored exhale, rubbing the side of her temple. "Unless you're okay with me telling the police what I saw . . . they're bound to find me."

"Raz," he replied shortly, obviously annoyed by her presence. And the fact that she was threatening him still. He didn't need another police investigation into his identity.

She sighed slowly, opening the door calmly. "No, it's really not . . . " she said quietly, then stepped out of the vehicle, putting her hands then in the pockets of her jean jacket and looking to the street signs for what road they were on. This girl seemed . . . if anything, lost in her own head. Was he about to leave her alone in the middle of the night, so pretty and barely clothed? She thought so, without much of an afterthought, and took out a pack of smokes and headed west on a sidewalk.

She didn't believe his name either, huh? Maybe he should have picked a more common name like John or something. Surprisingly, for him at least, the ambulance left her there. But it really wasn't five minutes later that it pulled back up to her. "Get in the blasted vehicle; I have no idea where I dropped you off."

Piper was leaning against the corner of a brick wall when he came up next to her, pulling at the last half dozen drags left of her cigarette. Either she didn't hear him or didn't see him was unknown . . . but it looked like she just forgot that he was there in general. In fact, there was at least an inch of ash standing on her cigarette.

It toppled after a couple more seconds and fell down to her bare thigh. She coughed and looked down, touching the red blotch where it had burned a little shock back into her. She looked at her cigarette, licking her lower lip. "Oh . . . . "

He was tempted to just grab her; that would get her attention. Instead, he honked the horn once. "Hey, you want a ride home or not?" Did she just burn herself with that cigarette? This human needed help. What went on in that mind of hers?

She looked up calmly as she dropped her cigarette to the ground and casually stepped it out by squirming her foot around the top of it.

She went up to the window, putting her arms on the sill. Did she want a ride home? She puckered her full lips, thinking for a moment, then got in to the passenger seat again, buckling herself up this time.

"Thanks . . . " she murmured. "It's on . . . um . . . . " Her brows furrowed. She knew where it was . . . street names were never her thing. That was why she was hanging at the corner. She didn't know the way.

"Do . . . you know where the Muscrat Bar Line is . . . ?" she asked, looking over at him with strained eyes. It was strange. They appeared near vacant, but not at all unintelligent. And the place she was talking about, the bar, was ten blocks away.

He didn't answer for a moment, looking straight through her as if he were processing something himself. "Yeah, I can get you there." Wait a minute... "Don't tell me you live at the bar." He was almost entranced by that gaze. Weird.

"I stay with Cage . . . for a little while," she said, looking away before he could get hooked in too long. She looked out the window, rubbing her knees with the palms of her hands, her slender fingers sporting a black cross ring, and another camel ring. "He's a real' nice guy . . . my apartment's not in a real' good place in the city . . . he likes it better if I don't get, ah . . . don't . . . " She closed her eyes, searching for the words. ". . . wants it to get a little lighter out before I walk to work from my place to the bar."

"Well, I suppose as long as you're looked after . . . " He would have stopped the conversation there, but he wasn't one to really keep quiet. "So you work at that bar then? From what I've heard, they're not very, uh, secure. What do you do?" He pulled away from the curb, taking back roads to keep away from the traffic.

"I pass out drinks . . . make 'em sometimes when Cage thinks I'm having a good day . . . sometimes I sing up on the stage . . . if the night's good." She shrugged, smiling idly now. "It's a nice job. I like it."

"Sounds boring to me," he replied, not afraid to insert is own opinion it would seem. "And I can never understand why music is so appealing to you all."

"All I gotta do is remember the words . . . even if I space out, I keep singing . . . that's good. I don't gotta worry about much. Aside from men I don't know trying to reach out sometimes if they're too drunk." She smiled affectionately at that, leaning forward in her seat. "It's nice . . . a little boring, but it's a nice job."

He shook his head. "You're a very strange individual. Why do you 'space out' so much? There has to be something exciting going on in that mind of yours if it's preferable to reality." His processor began scanning through known organic defects. Mild autism maybe?

"I dunno . . . I looked up some stuff . . . ADD or whatever it was . . . I don't think that's it. Went to a doctor once. Said it was just normal for a teenager. That was a few years back." She seemed a little distraught and uncomfortable. She was told that it was all in her head. That she was fine. It must have made her feel less than eager to go back to a second one. "I'm okay. I don't need a doctor. I don't get in trouble much anymore."

"I never suggested a doctor," he said, "though you picked the wrong person to run into." Without her knowledge, he was already performing diagnostics on her. Discreetly, of course. "What _do_ you think about? You've hardly heard a word I've said since we met."

He'd find that she was just . . . all right. Nothing strange. Nothing irregular. Just a young woman in her twenties, healthy as every other casual smoker.

Piper looked over at him, smiling prettily. "Doesn't bother me . . . I'm not that worried about it. If I don't get kidnapped or wind up in a weird city, it's been a good day."

"Uh, does that happen to you a lot?" he asked. Was she even from around here? He shut off the diagnostics when they didn't return any relevant data. It looked like she was perfectly normal. Maybe being normal had a lot more gray area than he first thought.

"Well, I got taken home by a few men . . . some weren't so bad. Starfuckers, I call 'em. Some I even slept with it." She shrugged. "I try to stay out of that now. Feels a lot better knowing where I wake up than trying to remember Cage's number."

"Star? That's impossible! They'd incinerate upon contact with a star!" he retorted, scoffing and completely missing the allusion. "You need something to bring you back to reality. Like a shock bracelet tuned in to the electric signals in your brain." he mused.

"Like a crazy person . . . ?" Again, she sounded a bit hurt. She leaned back in her seat, frowning and gripping the ends of her shorts. How far was it from the bar now . . . ? Not that far. She was bored with him. Enough with that, she didn't want to be here anymore.

"Oh, uh, I . . . didn't mean it like that," he said, feeling guilty again. "I just meant it would be, er, helpful if you end up in situations like what you described to me." Luckily for her, they were just around the corner.

"Well, thanks for the ride home. Hope you don't get arrested . . . " she murmured, glad when the ambulance began to slow. "Did you want a drink or something? Good of you to tie up those guys, I guess . . . I'll have Cage waive it for ya."

"What? Oh, no, I don't drink," he replied, a slight nervous undertone in his voice. He pulled to a stop in front of the bar and the passenger side door opened, but only for a moment before he pulled it shut. "Wait," he said, staring out the window at a shifty-looking character inside. "How is that possible?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, peering out of the window and looking beyond through the window, into the ill-lit bar inside. She rolled her shoulders, the neon lights of the sign above reflecting on her young face.

He glanced at her briefly, but didn't say anything. Inside, there stood a man dressed in a fancy black suit and sunglasses (strange since it was dark both inside and out). He looked nice enough, but the so-called 'Raz' was suspicious of him. Outside, the mirrors of the ambulance tilted forwards, focusing on a strange pair of red lights emanating from the darkness. At the same time both the man inside and the lights focused on the vehicle parked out front. Was this a setup? He was wary of the young woman in the car. Her calm demeanor, the distracted look in her eyes. Was she a part of it? For now he gave her the benefit of the doubt and before she could say anything, he took off down the road.

"Uh . . . you tryna be one of those starfuckers?" she asked, looking over at him with a scratch of her temple with her slender fingertips, looking vaguely worrisome - if not, then only tired. "You don't gotta come in, just let me get out . . . I wanna get to bed."

He rolled his eyes at her. She was clueless, but that was better than arguing with him, he supposed. Looking out of the rearview windows, he could see the man in the black suit sprinting after them at superhuman speed, and right next to him looked like some animatronic black panther. "Not an option right now!" he shot back at her in response to her desire to sleep this all off.

Piper leaned forward, checking the sideview mirror. "What's . . . that?" she asked, intrigued, but hindered by the small viewing space. She rolled down the window and leaned her head out of it, her hair going all over the place. "Is that your friend . . . ?"

"Gah, Piper!" he shouted, completely flummoxed by her actions. The man in the suit lifted his arm up just as it started to dematerialize into something completely different: a weapon. It powered up before unleashing a powerful blast aimed straight for her head and Raz pulled her back inside just in time, rolling up the window quickly. "Keep your head in the vehicle!"

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**Thanks for reading; reviews are appreciated.**


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